The Night Book

by Richard Madeley

  So, what next in her husband’s aquatic danse macabre? Considering how vigorously she’d seen him kicking downwards, it could only have been two or three seconds before his head and neck and shoulders, and then the rest of him, plunged into the icy water that lay just beneath the freakishly warm mantle above.

  The shock must have been overwhelming and, judging by all that ghastly foam she’d seen coming from his mouth and nostrils when he eventually surfaced, Cameron must have immediately and deeply inhaled; a reflex gasp.

  Would that have rendered him unconscious? Probably not straight away. The sensation of sucking ice-cold liquid into his lungs must have been excruciating. Cameron had remained underwater and beyond sight for many more seconds. God knows what torments he had suffered during that time.

  Perhaps, Meriel thought, such extreme and desperate corners of the human zoo were better kept beyond witness.

  She took a deep swallow from the tumbler and threw her head back.

  Well, there. She’d done her best to face up to the reality of Cameron’s last moments. She hadn’t tried to fool herself by minimising his agony. Indeed, she accepted that what she had put him through was probably more dreadful than anything she or anyone else could possibly imagine.

  And it was she who’d put him through it. She was completely responsible. She’d made it all happen. She’d set a snare and encouraged him to throw the noose around his own neck.

  Then she’d calmly stood back and let him die.

  But she didn’t feel a shred of guilt or remorse about any of it, did she? Not a crumb of compassion. No empathy, no regret. Meriel had to admit it to herself: her conscience was entirely undisturbed.

  She suddenly sat up and addressed the shimmering lake opposite.

  ‘Perhaps I’m a psychopath.’

  She swirled the thought around her half-empty glass, considering the question for a few more moments. Then she stood up.

  ‘All right, then. Let’s go and see, shall we?’

  She crossed the passage that led into the library – it had been a library back in the rector’s day and still housed some of his original books – and found her weighty new-edition English Dictionary and Thesaurus.

  Meriel ran a forefinger down the margin of the page that was helpfully headed ‘psycho’.

  ‘Psychometry, psychomotor,’ she muttered. ‘Here we are. Psychopath.

  A person with a personality disorder characterised by a tendency to commit antisocial and sometimes violent acts without feeling guilt.

  Meriel was thoughtful. This was interesting. She hadn’t been actually violent, had she? She’d only chucked his stupid watch into the water. Lots of people in bad relationships did crazy things like that.

  And none of what she’d done could be described as a tendency, could it? Nothing like it had ever happened before in her life. As for antisocial . . . well, society was hardly worse off for a vile, cruel man’s passing, was it?

  That part of the definition regarding absence of guilt was spot-on, obviously. She was bang to rights there. But only in relation to Cameron’s death. She was perfectly capable of experiencing guilt about lots of other things, wasn’t she? She had morals. She wasn’t some sort of unfeeling, killer robot.

  On impulse, she searched the pages until she found the exposition of ‘killer’.

  Person or animal that kills, habitually.

  Habitually? Meriel snorted. Not guilty.

  She flipped forward again, this time to ‘murder’.

  Unlawful premeditated intended killing of one human being by another.

  Not guilty again. There was absolutely nothing premeditated about what had happened on the lake this afternoon. As far as intent went, all she’d intended when the boat left the jetty was to ask Cameron for a trial separation.

  So . . . what exactly had taken place between her and Cameron out there on the water? Could it even be defined in a single word?

  Perhaps. A suspicion of what that word might be had been slowly forming in the back of Meriel’s mind.

  She turned the dictionary’s pages again. She knew what she was looking for.

  There it was; three syllables.

  Manslaughter.

  The definition beneath perfectly summarised what she’d done that day.

  The unlawful killing of one human being by another, without malice aforethought.

  She drained off what was left of her whisky in one steady swallow.

  ‘Without malice aforethought.’ Meriel spoke the words aloud.

  Definitely manslaughter, then.

  She reckoned she could live with that.

  Especially if no one ever found out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  It was a little before quarter to eight when Seb dialled Bob Merryman’s personal hotline. The news editor not only had his own extension, but a completely separate landline too, dedicated to his exclusive use. Lake District FM’s accountants had grumbled at the expense, but Merryman had insisted on it when he’d been poached to join the station.

  ‘I’m fucked if I’ll fight for switchboard space with my reporters during a breaking story,’ he said bluntly during discussions over his contract. ‘It’s part of my package. No line, no deal. Non-negotiable.’

  Today, he’d come in especially early to co-ordinate coverage of the latest Lakeland drowning. It was going to be a big story and not just locally. There was a general sense that a tipping point had been reached. Two deaths in Ullswater in a week. Eleven in the Lake District inside two months. There were rumours that a special government inquiry was about to be announced.

  The news editor was on his third coffee and his fourth cigarette when his personal phone rang. He didn’t rush to answer, giving himself time to take a gulp and then a drag before picking up.

  ‘Merryman.’

  ‘Bob, it’s Seb. I’m calling from the Glenridding Hotel. The press conference starts in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘I know. Morning, Seb. Good holding work on the six and seven o’clock headlines; you managed to make some half-decent bricks without straw. But I’m assuming we’ll definitely get victim ID and a lot more background during the conference. Network’s been nagging me.’

  ‘Yeah, I thought they would. That’s why I’m calling you, so you can tell them yes, it’s definitely worth their while taking us live. But listen, Bob, that isn’t the only reason I phoned. There’s something bloody funny going on down here.’

  Merryman took a quick draw on his cigarette. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘I don’t know yet – not exactly. But it’s something specifically to do with the identity of the guy that drowned yesterday. About ten minutes ago the police press officer buttonholed me. I know him – we were on the same journalism course at college. He said he wanted to do me a favour. As an old mate. Took me aside from the rest of the pack and told me I should be prepared for a twist in the tale.’

  ‘Uh? What sort of twist?’

  ‘He wouldn’t elaborate. Said he couldn’t pre-empt the Chief Constable’s statement at eight.’

  The news editor stared at the receiver.

  ‘What the fuck’s he talking about?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I was going to ask you,’ Seb replied. ‘Have you heard anything?’

  ‘Of course I haven’t! I would have tipped you off straight away if I had.’

  ‘So what did he mean?’

  Merryman rubbed his chin, considering.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ he said at last. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yeah, actually. The cops have set up a little trestle table for us to put our mics on; already three or four of them are sitting behind it ready for the press conference. And they all keep shooting me these weird looks.’

  The news editor finished his cigarette and dropped the stub into his half-empty cup of coffee.

  ‘Well, forewarned is forearmed,’ he said at last. ‘I’d better tip off the network. Meanwhile if I hear anything between now and eight o’clock I’ll tell Jess over the radio car l
ink so he can pass it to you in your earphones. You’re fully rigged for outside broadcast, right? The network might want to do a live two-way with you right off the back of your piece.’

  ‘Yup. Locked and loaded. Well . . . this’ll be an interesting one. I wish I knew what was coming. I’ll do my best, Bob.’

  ‘You’ll do great. I’ll talk to you straight after transmission. Hey . . . I wonder exactly what we’ll be saying to each other about this then, eh?’

  ‘Christ knows. But I’m starting to get the damnedest feeling.’

  ‘. . . take you now to the shores of Ullswater in the Lake District, and our reporter Seb Richmond. Seb?’

  Seb was extremely tense. This was only his third live network broadcast, and it was going to be the trickiest by far.

  The first, at the start of this month, had been mostly pre-recorded, consisting largely of edited sound bites from the press conference that Jess had helped him lash together. All he’d really had to do was link from one clip to the next with short pieces of scripted commentary.

  The second had been even simpler: a straightforward ad-libbed conversation with the programme host.

  But this was turning into a sodding minefield. The chief constable, who was chairing the press call, had only just sat down and had yet to begin speaking. Seb would have to ‘fill’ until he did, and then judge when to come in quietly with his own commentary, all the while trying to keep one ear open to what the policeman was continuing to say in case he needed to cut straight back to it.

  Then there was the press officer’s warning of a ‘twist in the tale’. Whatever that was, he’d have to deal with it on the hoof.

  Yup. A sodding minefield.

  Seb licked his lips and settled himself into the plastic chair he had been allocated in the front row of the outdoor press call. The media had been assembled on a sun-browned patch of grass that stretched straight down to the lake itself, as if the lawn was reaching out to it, desperate to drink. Parched mountain tops encircled them and even this early in the day, the sun was already hot.

  Here goes nothing, Seb thought grimly as he heard his simultaneous cue from Carlisle and London.

  ‘Thank you. You find me on the sunlit banks of one of the most beautiful stretches of water in Lakeland, as police are poised to reveal the identity of the latest victim in this summer’s unprecedented litany of drownings. The question many here are asking this morning is . . .’

  Meriel felt strangely light-headed as she stepped from the shower.

  She had managed to get to sleep sometime after one, but she had snapped awake again less than two hours later, and from then until dawn she had been unable to stop herself endlessly replaying events of the previous day.

  She scarcely thought about Seb. Their night together, their plans, seemed utterly eclipsed and irrelevant now, even surreal. She had enough insight to know that was probably the consequence of shock, but there was nothing she could do about it. Her mind was flooded with insistent, crystal-clear images from yesterday.

  A glittering timepiece twisting and spinning lazily through space.

  Sparkling droplets fanning up and out as the Rolex splashed into the water and vanished.

  Kicking white feet fading from view.

  Froth and foam, thrashing limbs, terrible, animal cries.

  The stillness of death.

  Meriel shook water from her hair as she reached for a towel. She looked up at the brass ship’s clock, jauntily mounted above the lintel of the bathroom door. Eight o’clock. The police would be here in an hour to take her to the mortuary.

  She moved back into the bedroom and switched on her bedside radio. It was her habit to listen to the breakfast show’s main news as she dressed.

  Seb’s voice filled the room.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Seb wasn’t sure how much longer he could fill before he started to repeat himself. Others must have been having the same thought because he heard Jess’s voice suddenly crackle in his earphones.

  ‘Network says if the conference doesn’t start in thirty seconds, hand back to studio.’

  Unwittingly, Seb nodded as he continued to talk into his lip mic. He felt a little embarrassed by lip mics; they were more usually associated with sheepskin-jacketed football commentators.

  ‘So there it is. A grim record, in this summer of broken records. Eleven drownings, averaging almost two a week. Perhaps an absolute ban on going into the water is indeed now on the cards here in Lakeland – just a moment. I think we’re about to begin. Yes, the Chief Constable, Tom Harris, is ready to make his statement.’

  There was a small portable mixing desk in front of Seb. He quickly closed the fader controlling his own mic and opened the one connected to the chief constable’s. The policeman had already begun speaking.

  ‘. . . to you all for coming this morning. Let me immediately confirm the identity of the latest drowning victim here in the lakes. Yesterday, the body of Mr Cameron Bruton was recovered from Ullswater, at a point approximately a mile to the north of where we are currently . . .’

  Seb jolted back in his seat as if he’d been shot. His eyes widened and his mouth fell open. He almost dropped the microphone. Meriel’s husband! Holy Christ! The picnic on the boat. Her plan to tell him she wanted a separation. What in the name of God had happened out there yesterday?

  He had to force himself to focus on what the policeman was saying now.

  ‘. . . will of course be known to many as one of the UK’s leading entrepreneurs. He was also a prominent local figure, living as he did above the neighbouring lake of Derwent Water.

  ‘The exact circumstances of Mr Bruton’s death are still under investigation but at this point all the indications suggest accidental drowning. He and his wife, the broadcaster Meriel Kidd, were on board their motor launch – a regular Sunday outing for the couple, I understand – and had hove-to so Mr Bruton could enjoy a swim around the vessel. Again, this was his custom. His wife states that her husband suddenly vanished beneath the surface of the lake and when he reappeared he was in a state of great distress. She attempted to throw him a lifebelt but he was unable to respond and, shortly after, he ceased breathing. A passing hire boat offered assistance, but the occupants were unable to revive Mr Bruton. Neither were the officers who arrived by police launch shortly afterwards.

  ‘Mr Bruton was declared dead by a local GP, who happened to be sailing nearby, at 3.17 p.m. yesterday, Sunday. A postmortem will be performed later today in Kendal after formal identification by his widow.

  ‘That concludes my statement, ladies and gentlemen. I shall now be happy to take questions.’

  Seb’s mind was reeling. He felt as though he had been struck violently in the face, but his was the first hand in the air. The chief constable nodded towards him. ‘Yes, there on the front row.’

  Seb stood up unsteadily. ‘Seb Richmond, Lake District FM. Mr Harris, can you tell us—’

  Jess’s calm voice immediately came through his earphones. ‘Open your fader, Seb. We can’t hear you.’

  Shit. He slid the control downwards and began again.

  ‘I’m sorry about that . . . Seb Richmond, Lake District FM. Mr Harris, can you tell us any more about Miss Kidd? As you may know, she’s a regular broadcaster on the radio network that I represent. This news will come as a considerable shock to her listeners, and indeed her colleagues . . . as it has to me. Did she enter the water herself during the incident? Is she . . .’ he hesitated. ‘Is she all right?’

  The policeman nodded, although he looked curiously at his questioner.

  ‘Mrs Bruton was obviously deeply traumatised by witnessing her husband’s death, but she has demonstrated remarkable composure in the hours since. She was able to make a detailed statement to my officers before returning home last night.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘She is due in Kendal in a little over an hour to make, as I say, formal identification.

  ‘Concerning the sad events of yesterday, I am advised that Mrs Bruton did not at
any stage enter the water. As I understand it, she is unable to swim. She did manage to throw one of the boat’s lifebelts to her husband, as I believe I have said, but unfortunately he was unable to avail himself of it.’

  Seb would have asked another question but other hands were waving in the air. The chief constable pointed to his right. ‘Yes, Carlisle Evening News. Morning, Harry.’

  ‘Morning, sir. As you know there has been extensive publicity about the risks of swimming in the lakes during this unprecedented heatwave, and in particular the specific danger of going beneath the surface. Is there any suggestion as to why Mr Bruton should have done just that – gone under, that is – and if it contributed to his death? And – I’m sorry, just one more, please – shouldn’t the authorities now impose a complete ban on swimming while these uniquely treacherous conditions persist?’

  The policeman shook his head.

  ‘It’s a “no” to the first part of your question, Harry. We have absolutely no evidence at all to suggest why Mr Bruton should have swum below the surface of the lake. Indeed we don’t even know if it was a conscious action or an involuntary one. Mrs Bruton has only been able to tell us that one moment her husband appeared to be swimming perfectly normally, and the next he had disappeared from view.

  ‘As to the precise cause or causes of death, we may know more after today’s postmortem. Meanwhile a decision on banning all swimming in the national park is under continuous review. Next question, please.’

  The following query was procedural, concerned with the postmortem, and Seb knew this was the moment he should fade the chief constable down and deliver some commentary of his own. But he was entirely incapable of it. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say. All he could think about was Meriel, what she must have gone through yesterday and what she was about to go through today in the morgue.